_______

See/hear Journalist Eva Bartlett on the foreign invasion

of Syria and the role of the BBC (British Bullsh't Corp.)

'No hope with Justin Trudeau, he is just a prettier face'

(See Media Watch below)

Travel

By Dennis Carr,Contributing Editor

Vietnam by air, train, rowboat

kayak, ferry, scooter, bicycle, and foot (Part I)

'Vietnam has a communist government, a capitalist economy'

By Dennis Carr

Contributing Editor, True North Perspective

Why Vietnam? Was it because the Vietnam War was my generation’s watershed moment and I wanted to check it out nearly 40 years after the end of the ‘conflict overseas’? Nothing as dramatic as that. In truth, we were living in Vancouver at the time and were as close to Asia as we would ever likely be, we had heard great things about the country and we loved the food. But the Vietnam War was a touchstone for my generation. In the late 1960’s and early ‘70’s nobody was neutral; you were either for or against the American invasion of Southeast Asia. Throughout the trip, the war wasn't far from my mind. (More)

Sunny days? More than 22,000 arrested for pot under Trudeau

By Dana LarsenVancouver Sun

7 March 2016 — There has been over 22,400 arrests for cannabis possession in Canada since Justin Trudeau became Prime Minister.

I derive that number from the last reported rate of cannabis possession arrests in Canada of 160 per day, or one every 9 minutes. There is no indication that the rate of arrests has slowed since Trudeau took over, with many police forces explicitly saying they are continuing to enforce the possession laws as strictly as ever. Bill Blair agrees, saying he wants pot busts to continue.

Yet according to Bill Blair, a disproportionate number of these arrests are among "minority communities, aboriginal communities and those in our most vulnerable neighbourhoods." (More)

Ashamed of the Nazi-promoting Maidan gang in Kiev

Staff prosecutor Natalya Poklonskayamoved to Crimea

Where she's now sending leading crime bosses to prison

RT

16 March 2016 — So appalled and embarrassed was staff prosecutor Natalya Poklonskaya by the U.S. supported right-wing pro-Nazi demonstrators in Kiev that she offered her services to the Crimean office, then a part of the Ukraine. She had had about a dozen years experience in the Ukraine's prosecutors office but she offered to perform even clerical work just to get out of Kiev.

On acceptance by the Crimean office she filed her resignation but Kiev wouldn't buy it. They told her she was suffering a case of nerves and that she should go home and take s rest. Instead she went to Crimea. Now she's chief prosecutor with the equivalent rank of military major general. And sending crime bosses to prison. (More)

Russian soldier who called airstrike

on himself while surrounded by ISIS is hero

Former US Marine combat veteran, Gordon Duff: “We watched (Russian) planes . . . wipe out targets America had missed or overlooked or that, according to American pilots, they weren’t allowed to hit. American pilots can bomb, they have the experience, they have the equipment but for some reason, at least to each other and those they trust, they will tell you, against ISIS it has always been “hands off.”

By John Wight

RT

20 March 2016 —I don’t know Aleksandr Prochorenko. I know nothing of his background or what his dreams and hopes were for the future. But I do know that he’s a hero who will never be forgotten, and that the cause for which he sacrificed his life is a righteous one.

The 25-year-old Russian was killed while on special operations in occupied Palmyra. In advance of the city’s liberation by the Syrian Arab Army and its allies on the ground, his role was to identify and pass on the coordinates of ISIS targets in the city for airstrikes. Consequently, his mission could not have been more dangerous. This was proved when his location was uncovered by ISIS terrorists and they began closing in on him. Realizing what was happening, and rather than allow himself to be captured, Aleksandr called in an airstrike on himself. (More)

Why is Hillary OK with Honduran Death Squads?

Honduran assassination has deep American roots if not fingerprints

By William Boardman

Reader Supported News

18 March 2016 — When a Honduran death squad gunned down internationally-honored environmental activist Berta Caceres, 44, a retired teacher and mother of four, in her home on March 3, the media-filtered world as we know it took note, briefly, expressed some regret, provided little context, and moved on. The outcry from rest of the real world included demands from the UN, more than 20 U.S. Congress members, and hundreds of NGOs for an independent investigation of this political assassination [a 2014 letter from 108 congressmen to Secretary of State John Kerry calling for the U.S. to address human rights abuses in Honduras had little impact]. Now, in response to a similar request, the U.S. has sent FBI agents to help the Honduran government, whose first action was to detain the only witness, Gustavo Castro Soto, himself shot twice in the same attack (and still in Honduran custody two weeks later). (More)

_______

Obama scrambles to clean up Hillary's Libyan mess

Her illegal war in 2011 allows terrorists to succeed now

'Life is scary, frustrating and sometimes funny. All of these themes are explored in Carl Dow’s collection of short stories, told with the pristine elegance that we haven’t seen since the likes of Stephen Leacock or even Pierre Berton.'

Wisdom is a result of a happy marriage between intelligence and experience. —Carl Dow, Editor and Publisher, True North Perspective.

True North Perspective

Vol. 12, No. 05 (365)

April 2016

Editor's Notes

The American dream has become a nightmare

The thugs in control have shamed the U.S. military

Russians teach Americans how to focus, aim, and fire

Paying attention to the U.S. presidential elections has moved me from amusement, to scorn, and from scorn to a sense of horror. Clinton, Trump, and Cruz apparently will say anything to win votes.

Working backwards, Cruz is a narrow religious fanatic with enough presence of mind to make an apparently rational bid for the right wing vote — at least right wing in today's dismal context.

Trump is a knowing liar who prompts amusement by crude character assassinations of his opponents. He's not clinically psychopathic. But if you listen to his sound carefully and carefully study his face and body language he reveals his profound contempt for what he perceives to be his corner of the electorate. He almost choked on his words when he said with a false smile that bordered a grimace, "I love poor people."

Clinton has more than the proverbial loose screw. She behaves as if everything that pins down her mind has gone missing.

Video after video by mainstream television cameras reveal a steady stream of lies on almost every subject. Billy Crystal exercised considerable restraint when he referred to a pathologically dishonest and possibly unbalanced Hillary Clinton.

Please don't take "unbalanced" lightly. Google Hillary Clinton's liesand you'll see videos that expose Clinton. It appears that she's in a serious disconnect with reality when she pursues a line of argument that contradicts videos of herself talking the opposite to what she claims.

Hanging on to the thread of Adolph Hitler's maxim that if you tell a lie often enough people will believe it, the videos show that she's lying again and again. In the face of overwhelming evidence that she's lying, her handlers should arrange for her to cease and desist.

The lie that underlines most clearly for me that she's out of control is her contention that on a flight to Kosovo she landed under sniper fire and had to flee the plane and airport. But mainstream video cameras were there and revealed a picnic-like atmosphere during which a girl gave her a bouquet of flowers.

Despite the video evidence to the contrary Clinton persists in saying she was under sniper fire. This, with all the other video contradictions, suggests a seriously disturbed mind.

The only hope for the United States of America in the current presidential election campaign is that of Bernie Sanders. He has a long experience as a politician who has talked and acted in the interests of the 90 per cent.

Meanwhile, over to Syria.

The American military has a high sense of embarrassment as the Russian air force has shown the former how to focus, aim, and fire.

Last year, Russian foreign minister Lavrov asked in public what the Americans were doing in Syria. He said the Americans, in the name of fighting ISIS, had dropped enough bombs to blow Syria off the map. Yet ISIS continued to grow in numbers, in wealth, and occupied territory.

Exasperated, Russia, at the invitation of the al Assad legitimate government of Syria, on 30 September 2015, launched an aerial attack on ISIS that within a few months, together with Syrian ground troops, have seriously knocked the wind out the terrorists and put them on the run.

Former U.S. Marine combat veteran, Gordon Duff, has confirmed what we've long suspected.

“We watched (Russian) planes . . . wipe out targets America had missed or overlooked or that, according to American pilots, they weren’t allowed to hit. American pilots can bomb, they have the experience, they have the equipment but for some reason, at least to each other and those they trust, they will tell you, against ISIS it has always been “hands off.”

The intellectual thugs who have seized control of Washington, and who obviously are also divorced from reality, had planned to use ISIS to effect regime change in Syria. In bizarre refusal to acknowledge their failure they still hope to achieve their goal by funding and arming a spent force. The Pentagon already has admitted to spending a half-billion dollars on opposition troops that resulted in "four or five" men with boots on the ground.

Their cruel stupidity has killed tens of thousands and created millions of refugees.

Plain and simple, those who control Washington are guilty of war crimes.

Meanwhile, take it easy, but take it.

Looking forward.

Carl Dow

Editor and Publisher

True North Perspective

True North Humanist Perspective

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Op Ed

Electoral reform in Canada

Nigel Aplin offers a fresh take

on proportional representation

The Globe and Mail ran an editorial series a few weeks ago on electoral reform. Among other things, it questioned the need for any electoral reform at all and, if there is any improvement to be made in the way we elect governments, it called for a national referendum to decide on a new system rather than simply the creation of a parliamentary bill passed in the usual course. I tend to agree with the latter point but certainly not with the former.

I have been increasingly dissatisfied with the first-past-the-post system over recent elections and, in our multi-party system, with the relative ease with which parties have been able to win the majority of seats in parliament (and in provincial legislatures) while receiving significantly less than a majority of the popular vote. (More)

Op Ed

TPP: The Devil’s in the Details

'Canada has been successfully sued by a number of corporations for laws and regulations we have tried to pass that were deemed to ‘interfere’ with corporate profits. These suits and complaints have come from a variety of sources already, including the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) and the WTO (World Trade Organization) that successfully forced Ontario to drop its requirement that renewable energy equipment be manufactured in the Province.'

By David McLaren

20 March 2016 — Think ‘property.’ Now think ‘treaty’ … as in those instruments that transferred land from people who belonged to it, to people to whom it then belonged. Pretty good deal for us, not so much for First Nations. (A stony outcropping of land called the Bruce Peninsula was evaluated not so long ago as being worth some $50 billion —just imagine what the rest of Canada is worth.)

Now you’re in the proper frame of mind to consider the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). That’s the instrument that the Conservatives negotiated and the Liberals have yet to ratify.

The TPP is a massive trade and investment agreement that dwarfs, but does not replace, NAFTA in its scope. It’s the rule book for many things: investment (a troubling chapter that allows foreign companies to sue countries if national laws get in the way of corporate profits), textiles and apparel, customs administration, financial services, entry for business persons, telecommunications, electronic commerce, government procurement, intellectual property and more. (More)

_______

NAFTA's Chapter 11 makes Canada

the most-sued country under 'Free Trade' tribunals

63 per cent of the claims against Canada involved challenges to environmental protection or resource management programs

By Sunny FreemanHuffingtonPost.ca

14 January 2015 — Canada is the most-sued country under the North American Free Trade Agreement and a majority of the disputes involve investors challenging the country’s environmental laws, according to a new study.

The study from the left-leaning Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) found that more than 70 per cent of claims since 2005 have been brought against Canada, and the number of challenges under a controversial settlement clause is rising sharply.

The investor-state dispute settlement mechanism contained in NAFTA’s chapter 11 grants investors the right to sue foreign governments without first pursuing legal action in the country’s court systems.(More)

Op Ed

Hillary Clinton sugarcoats her disastrous record of fails

and lies including Medicare and conducting illegal wars

'She was the illegal 'butcher of Libya,' an ongoing, unfolding tragedy whose blowbacks of 'unintended consequences' are building by the week. Clinton “is the candidate of the War Machine.”

By Ralph Nader

OpEd News

13 February 2016 — Bernie Sanders is far too easy on Hillary Clinton in their debates. Clinton flaunts her record and experience in ways that Sanders could use to expose her serious vulnerabilities and disqualifications for becoming president. Sanders responds to Clinton’s points, but without the precision that could demolish her arrogance. (More)

The Binkley Report

Alex Binkley is a foremost political and economic analyst, whose website is www.alexbinkley.com. Readers will be aware that his columns in True North Perspective have foreseen political and economic developments in Canada. In this edition

Transportation report covers

a lot of ground, deserves more attention

By Alex Binkley

True North Perspective

There are enough recommendations and ideas in the recent report assessing federal transport policies and regulations to keep Transport Minister Marc Garneau busy for years.

However the report’s theme of assessing the transportation system in light of its importance to the country’s future prosperity will likely become lost in the debates over its more 60 detailed recommendations on everything from railway service to the regulatory effectiveness of the Canadian Transportation Agency.

While the report was presented to the government before Christmas, Garneau didn’t comment on its proposals until after its release in late February. He said the review “looks ahead, over the next 20 to 30 years, to examine how we can maximize the contribution of our transportation system to support Canada’s economic growth.” Other than vague references to discussions with provincial governments, he hasn’t indicated whether there will be formal, public consultations. (More)

Environment

February smashes monthly world temperature records

by 'shocking' amount as 'climate emergency' declared

'In short, we are now hurtling at a frightening pace toward the globally agreed maximum of 2.0°C warming over pre-industrial levels'

By Samuel OsborneThe Independent

14 March 2016 — The global temperature in February smashed monthly records to become the warmest month in more than a century of recordkeeping.

According to Nasa data, global surface temperatures across land and ocean in February were 1.35°C warmer than the average temperature for that month, measured from the 1951-1980 baseline.

The previous record was set in January, which was 1.14°C warmer than the baseline average for that month.

The result was "a true shocker, and yet another reminder of the incessant long-term rise in global temperature resulting from human-produced greenhouse gases," Jeff Masters and Bob Henson wrote, in a blog analysing the data on Weather Underound. (More)

_______

Steam injection fractures caprock in big Alberta spill

Incident highlights fragility of high-cost energy extraction

By Andrew Nikiforuk

TheTyee.ca

23 March 2016 — Three years after an eruption of 10,000 barrels of melted bitumen contaminated the boreal forest and groundwater near Cold Lake, Alberta, the provincial energy regulator has now officially blamed hydraulic fracturing, or the pressurized injection of steam into the ground for fracturing nearby rock.

The bitumen blowout occurred sometime between May and June 2013 at Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.'s Cold Lake project, an operation that uses steam injection to melt bitumen and bring it to the surface. In this case, the pressure from the steam cracked rock between different formations, allowing melted bitumen to find natural fractures and flow to the surface at five different locations, including under a lake. In some places, the bitumen erupted through fissures in the ground as long as 159 metres deep.

The event, not the first of its kind as an earlier Tyee investigation revealed, killed wildlife and seeped nearly 20 barrels of bitumen a day into muskeg over a five-month period. In a lengthy report, the Alberta Energy Regulator concluded what experts had suggested all along -- that all five bitumen seeping events "were caused by excessive steam volumes, along with an open conduit (wellbore or natural fracture or fault) or hydraulically induced vertical fractures."(More)

Ottawa budget misses mark to create

opportunity for non-profit housing providers

By Sharad Kerur

Executive Director

Ontario NonProfit Housing Aassociation

In our opinion, the federal budget failed to live up to the high expectations that the government set for the non-profit housing sector. Through our national housing advocate, the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association (CHRA) and a coalition of provincial, territorial and local partners, we advocated for an investment in:

• the sizable and growing capital repair backlog facing social housing providers across Canada• the construction of new, deeply-affordable rental housing to meet the growing demand, and• a solution to help households affected by the expiry of federal operating agreements.

“The budget spoke to the creation of new affordable rental housing, some investment in capital repairs and strategic investment in priority populations, but not in a way that creates a lot of opportunity for non-profit housing providers. We believe that the federal government has missed an opportunity to leverage the expertise of our members and their communities.”(More)

Bits and Bites of Everyday Life

Sympathy, compassion, or mercy . . .

Whatever it takes, let’s make dignified dying happen

AlberteVilleneuve-Sinclair is the author of The Neglected Garden and two French novels. Visit her website to learn more www.albertevilleneuve.ca.

1 April 2016 — In a 2015 article entitled “Make it happen”, I discussed two important topics: gender equality and the right to die with dignity. My readers really appreciated the article and I told them I would revisit the subject of “dying with dignity” at a later date. The time has come as the government is set to have a law regarding doctor-assisted death to eligible patients set up across Canada by early June.

This would permit a physician to assist a patient who requests an end to his life, providing he is mentally competent when the request is made and it is proven the patient has a “grievous and irremediable” medical situation that imposes intolerable suffering. This would also include terminal conditions where no hope of recovery is possible.

I remember reading with profound sadness how Janice Kennedy, a retired journalist, lost her only sister, Sheila, toALS(Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis also known as Lou Gehrig's) Disease. This disease is most insidious as it slowly robs a person’s body of all its functions while leaving the mind intact. ALS sufferers have no other option but to watch their body slowly wither and die. As Janice explained: (More)

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From the Desk of Darren Jerome

A continuing update on the war against WikiLeaks transparency

Please be advised that the below is not just the same old thing. By clicking on it you'll find the petition in support of Julian Assange and discover fascinating on-going reports and videos related to one of the most important events in modern history, and the desperate attempts to put a lid on information that everyone should know. Don't miss this special opportunity to stay informed.

There can be no life without laughter

13-year-old girl can't believe how immature everyone is

ORLANDO, FL—Disgusted with the total childishness of those around her, 13-year-old Alexis Keefe announced Monday that she can't believe how immature everyone is. (More)

_______

Boaty McBoatface leads online vote to name £200m British research vessel

By Rebecca Flood

The Independent

23 March 2016 — The official name of a new multi-million pound research vessel could be the RRS Boaty McBoatface after the internet was asked for its ideas.

When the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) opened up suggestions to name their new ship, little could they have predicted what the frontrunner would be.

Steaming ahead of its rivals, RRS Boaty McBoatface is outstripping the likes of Endeavour, Henry Worsley, David Attenborough, Falcon and many more offerings.(More)

Sports by Nigel Aplin

What kind of owners should fans

of professional sports teams want?

Reports from Florida in February, as the Toronto Blue Jays were about to begin spring training for the 2016 season, claimed that the Blue Jays 35-year-old slugger, Jose Bautista, whose contract expires at the end of this upcoming season, wants a new six-year deal that will pay him about $30 million per season for a total commitment of $180 million. He is set to earn $14 million in 2016.

Another heavy hitting Blue Jay, Edwin Encarnacion who is now 33, is also entering the final year of his contract which pays him $10 million this season. He too wants a new multi-year deal for top dollar. Blue Jays President Mark Shapiro has maintained that the club will not negotiate with its players through the media but he has indicated that the team would like to retain both players past this season.

Major League Baseball is the only one of the four major North American team sports without a player salary cap. Teams are free to spend whatever amounts they want on player salaries. This is one reason why teams which play in large markets like the New York Yankees, New York Mets, Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs, usually have the highest payrolls and often, but certainly not always, field the best teams. They can drive more revenue from gate receipts and the sale of local broadcast rights than other teams. Baseball has been this way for a hundred years or more. In baseball, there is a long and rich history to hating the big, bad Yankees. (More)

Classic Quiz

By Mark Kearney and Randy Ray

Mark Kearney of London, Ont. and Randy Ray of Ottawa are the authors of nine books about Canada, with best-seller sales of more than 50,000. Their Web site is: www.triviaguys.com

Questions

1. Which city had a bigger population in 1901 – Saint John, N.B. or Vancouver, B.C.?

3. In 1986, Canadian Sharon Wood became the first woman from North America to do this. Was it
a) climb Mount Everest b) pilot a jet plane for a commercial airline c) play in a men’s professional golf tournament d) win the Top Chef in Europe award

The history of Canada covers the period from the arrival of Paleo-Indians thousands of years ago to the present day. Canada has been inhabited for millennia by distinctive groups of Aboriginal peoples, with distinct trade networks, spiritual beliefs, and social hierarchies. Some of these civilizations had long faded by the time of the first European arrivals and have been discovered through archaeological investigations. Various treaties and laws have been enacted between European settlers and the Aboriginal populations.

Beginning in the late 15th century French and British expeditions explored, and later settled, along the Atlantic Coast. France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America to Britain in 1763 after the Seven Years' War. In 1867, with the union of three British North American colonies through Confederation, Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces. This began an accretion of provinces and territories and a process of increasing autonomy from the British Empire, which became official with the Statute of Westminster of 1931 and completed in the Canada Act of 1982, which severed the vestiges of legal dependence on the British parliament.

Over centuries, elements of Aboriginal, French, British and more recent immigrant customs have combined to form a Canadian culture. Canadian culture has also been strongly influenced by its linguistic, geographic and economic neighbour, the United States. Since the conclusion of the Second World War, Canadians have supported multilateralism abroad and socioeconomic development domestically. Canada currently consists of ten provinces and three territories and is governed as a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy with Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state. — From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"News is what (certain) people want to keep hidden. Everything else is just publicity."

-- PBS journalist Bill Moyers.

Your support makes it possible for True North to clear the fog of "publicity" and keep you informed on what's really happening in the world today. Please send your donation to:

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Books

ISIS: The crisis started in 632 a.d.

Following almost a year of research, Al Emid's fifth book entitled What You Need to Know About ISIS – Terror, Religion, War and the Caliphate, set for release by Quidne Press in Spring, goes behind the news about ISIS and examines what might lie ahead.

By Al Emid,

Author Journalist Broadcaster

Chapter 38

History and historic watersheds do not just happen. A sudden dramatic incident can appear devoid of a clear cause-and-effect relationship with events preceding it although it triggers many events that follow it. Understanding history — truly understanding history — requires differentiating between an immediate trigger that ‘lights’ the proverbial match setting everything aflame and events that subsequently evolved into a tragedy.

In June 1914, a Serbian nationalist shot ArchDuke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie. In our history classes we have heard that the assassination triggered the outbreak of World War I and all that followed: over 14 million deaths, broken empires, redrawn boundaries and even the seeds of World War II. Gavrilo Princip, the assassin qualifies as either a hero or terrorist, depending on one’s point of view. (Some Serb historians see him as a hero. Some accounts refer to him as a terrorist affiliated with a terrorist group.) But Princip’s decision to shoot the ArchDuke and his wife followed decades of Serbian bitterness and had cataclysmic results felt indirectly today. (More)

Excerpt from My Turn

A critical Doug Henwood book on Hillary

Politics, the family business of the Clintons, has been very good to them, as they have raised between $2 billion and $3 billion since 1992.

By Doug Henwood

OR Books

The following is an excerpt from the new book My Turn: Hillary Clinton Targets the Presidency by Doug Henwood (OR Books, 2016):

29 February 2016 — Once established, however, politics became the family’s business, and it’s been very good to them. A 2014 Wall Street Journal analysis showed that the Clintons have raised between $2 billion and $3 billion since 1992—more than three-quarters of it from industry sources—for their campaigns, philanthropies, and themselves. At the top of the list of corporate donors were financial firms, and highest up among them was Goldman Sachs. Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase gave generously as well. Not far behind Wall Street were communications/electronics firms and then, that perennial bedrock of Democratic Party support, lawyers and lobbyists. Those three sectors alone contributed more than ten times as much as organized labor, which pitched in just $41 million of the total over the period of the Journal’s study.

It’s hard to separate the Clintons’ personal fortune from the Foundation’s; the perks it provides are a form of imputed consumer services, to use the language of national income accounting—jetting all over, staying in fancy hotels, eating very well, and the rest. But they have been prodigious earners on their own account. Bill did most of the heavy financial lifting, earning $105 million from speeches in the dozen years after he left the White House; a good week could yield $1.4 million. According to work by the website 24/7 Wall St, Bill is the 10th-richest of our presidents, with a net worth of $55 million. (Five of the 10 richest presidents have been Democrats, compared to two Republicans, and on average, Democratic presidents are more than three times richer than Republicans.) But Hillary wasn’t just sitting around baking cookies: she’s worth $32 million, according to a Politico analysis. The property taxes on their two houses, one in D.C. and the other, for which they paid $4.5 million, in Westchester, are $104,000, twice the average household’s income. It’s a good life they’ve made for themselves. (More)

Military 'censors' book exposing poisoning of troops

By Ken Klippenstein

Reader Supported News

03 March 2016 — Skyhorse Publishing’s new imprint Hot Books, created to publish investigative books on controversial issues, has indeed touched off controversy with a new book that the Department of Defense refuses to carry in its stores relied upon most heavily by service members.

The book, titled The Burn Pits: The Poisoning of America’s Soldiers, reveals a link between military service in Iraq and Afghanistan and serious illnesses ranging from respiratory complications to brain cancers. The illnesses affect at least 59,000 soldiers including, according to the book, Joe Biden’s son Beau, who died of brain cancer after serving in Iraq.

Though one would think a book on this topic would be helpful to service members, Chris Ward, public affairs official for the Defense Department’s Army & Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES), confirmed to me via telephone that they had decided not to carry “The Burn Pits.” Ward would not provide a clear reason for not carrying the book, despite its prominence – it is an Amazon bestseller with favorable reviews in major news media like The Guardian.

When I told the publisher, David Talbot, about the DOD’s response, he called it an “outrageous and blatant example of government censorship.” He argued that the DOD has a responsibility to “do everything within their power to inform returning veterans about these potential health hazards instead of covering it up.”

Talbot thinks the DOD’s refusal to carry the book represents “the military’s ongoing efforts to cover up a problem that is developing into the Agent Orange scandal of Iraq and Afghanistan.” (More)

Prominent award-winning journalists reveal how CIA

bribes media to deliver lies that you read and hear daily

28 March 2016 — With the increasing propaganda wars, we thought a reminder of just how naive many Westerners are when it comes to their news-feed. As Arjun Walia, of GlobalResearch.ca, notes, Dr. Udo Ulfkotte went on public television stating that he was forced to publish the works of intelligence agents under his own name, also adding that noncompliance with these orders would result in him losing his job.

He recently made an appearance on RT news to share these facts: (More)

New York Times fades to a shill for Clinton campaign

How the New York Times sandbagged Bernie Sanders

'Online we see both faces of the Gray Lady'

'It was a long quote and in the new version, the (New York) Times yanked the last sentence, which read, "It was the first real reform of the V.A. ever." But it still has McCain calling Bernie an "honest liberal" and describing him as "very effective."'

By Matt Taibbi

Rolling Stone

16 March 2016 —The New York Times ran a piece about Bernie Sanders Monday 14 March, a sort of left-handed compliment of a legislative profile. It was called "Bernie Sanders Scored Victories for Years Via Legislative Side Doors."

I took notice of the piece by Jennifer Steinhauer because I wrote essentially the same article nearly 11 years ago. Mine, called "Four Amendments and a Funeral," was a Rolling Stone feature. Sanders back then was anxious that people know how Congress worked, and also how it didn't work, so he invited me to tag along for weeks to follow the process of a series of amendments he tried (and mostly succeeded) to pass in the House.

I came to the same conclusions that Steinhauer did initially: that Sanders was skilled at the amendment process and also had a unique ability to reach across the aisle to make deals.(More)

_____

New York Times presents Islam more negatively than cancer

Researchers say there were shocked to learn that Islam receives more negative coverage than cancer

TeleSur.net

5 March 2016 - The New York Times portrays Islam and Muslims more negatively than cancer, cocaine and alcohol, according to a report that studied the newspaper's headlines.

“Since 9/11, many media outlets began profiteering from the anti-Muslim climate. Though you could probably trace a similar trend back to the Iranian Revolution,” said Steven Zhou, head of Investigations and Civic Engagement and co-author of the study 'Are Muslims Collectively Responsible? A Sentiment Analysis of the New York Times.' (More)

Sanders blasts the corporate media

for failing to talk about real issues

Sanders talks with Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks on the role media plays in preventing change.

By Alexandra Rosenmann

AlterNet

24 March 2016 —Bernie Sanders was in Los Angeles recently, and what better place to discuss the corporate media and its failings than the entertainment capital of the world. Sanders took a break from campaigning to join Cenk Uygur, host of The Young Turks for a conversation about how major networks fail to inform the public.

“What you have is a corporate media which has conflicts of interest,” Sanders told Uygur. “Comcast owns NBC and by definition has conflicts of interest. Comcast owns NBC [and] co-owns Disney. They’re paying their workers in Disney World $8 or $9 an hour, bringing in people from around the world to replace American workers. These are important issues that they don’t want to discuss.”

Ronnie Corbett, best known for Two Ronnies, dies aged 85

BBC

31 March 2016 — Entertainer Ronnie Corbett, best known for BBC comedy sketch show The Two Ronnies, has died aged 85.

His publicist said: "Ronnie Corbett CBE, one of the nation's best-loved entertainers, passed away this morning, surrounded by his loving family. They have asked that their privacy is respected at this very sad time."

Corbett was one of the UK's best-loved comedians and along with Ronnie Barker; their double act was one of the most successful of the 1970s and '80s.

The entertainer had been suffering from ill-health for some time and had been in hospital in 2014 with gall bladder problems.(More)

Technology

Zoom to Mars in 6 weeks

with new Russian nuclear-fission engine

RT

3 March 2016 — A nuclear power propulsion system could propel a spacecraft to Mars in just over a month, a huge step forward from the current 18 months required. Russia might test a nuclear engine as early as 2018, the head of the Rosatom nuclear corporation revealed.

Another advantage of a nuclear engine is that it enables a spacecraft to maneuver throughout the flight, whereas existing technology only makes a defined trajectory flight possible.(More)

Health Watch

Why you forget what you came for when you enter the room

Forgetting why you entered a room is called the “Doorway Effect”, and it may reveal as much about the strengths of human memory, as it does the weaknesses

By Tom Stafford

BBC

8 March 2016 — We’ve all done it. Run upstairs to get your keys, but forget that it is them you’re looking for once you get to the bedroom. Open the fridge door and reach for the middle shelf only to realise that we can't remember why we opened the fridge in the first place. Or wait for a moment to interrupt a friend to find that the burning issue that made us want to interrupt has now vanished from our minds just as we come to speak: “What did I want to say again?” we ask a confused audience, who all think “how should we know?!”

Although these errors can be embarrassing, they are also common. It’s known as the “Doorway Effect”, and it reveals some important features of how our minds are organised. Understanding this might help us appreciate those temporary moments of forgetfulness as more than just an annoyance (although they will still be annoying). (More)

Science

Great tilt gave Mars a new face 3 billion years ago

Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, via AstronomyNow.com

3 March 2016 — The surface of the planet Mars tilted by 20 to 25 degrees 3 to 3.5 billion years ago. This was caused by a massive volcanic structure, the Tharsis volcanic dome (in which is located 13-mile-high Olympus Mons, the highest mountain in the Solar System), the largest structure of its type in the Solar System. Because of its extraordinary mass, it caused the outer layers of Mars (its crust and mantle) to rotate around its core.

The discovery of this huge shift changes our vision of Mars during the first billion years of its history, at a time when life may have emerged. It also provides a solution to three puzzles: we now know why rivers formed where they are observed today; why underground reservoirs of water ice, until now considered anomalous, are located far from the poles of Mars; and why the Tharsis dome is today situated on the equator. These findings were published on 2 March 2016 in the journal Nature.(More)

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